Time for New Year's Resolutions

I know that a lot of people think these resolutions are a bit hokey, but I like them. It at least gives life (and knitting) a focus and even if I don't keep all of them, I at least get some done.

1. This year I will conquer two-handed stranded knitting. I have been working on it off and on and I really want to concentrate on it this year. I know how to knit from both hands and to strand on the knit side, but the purl side eludes me...well, I know how to let go of the needle and twist the threads, but I want a motion like on the knit side that will be smooth and a part of the rhythm of knitting. I also have to master the jog-less joining of my rounds. I just hate seeing the pattern spoiled at the end of each round.

I am also still having trouble making my floats long enough. Even though I think I am spreading my knitting enough to get the correct tension, I still come up with places where the pattern is just a little tight.

To do this, I plan to make lots of charity hats with Fair Isle patterns in them. I am too much of a perfectionist to keep from frustrating myself on gifts for the special people on my list. I won't turn in hats with glaring errors in them, but I think a homeless person will get a hat with a Fair Isle pattern and think how nice it is that someone made them a hat with a pattern in it instead of just making plane old serviceable hats. I doubt they will notice that the design might be a little bit tight in places. Actually, I started on this learning project last year and have made quite a few, but this year I really want to concentrate on putting it all together.

2. I am going to do more designing from scratch. For years I have adjusted my patterns changing length, collars, trim, hems etc., but this year I want to design from scratch using a person's measurements. I already have two Aran sweaters on the needles and have knit the fronts up to the armholes. Over the Christmas holidays I hope to get at least one of them graphed out.

3. I am still working on my UFOs and plan to bring them to Virginia when I go up in the summer again. That worked so well this past year and I have really gotten a lot done. I actually ended up making some up for Christmas presents which cut down on the amount of Christmas knitting I had.

4. I am making some serious headway with my stash. I have found some great things to do with some of my yarn. One member of my knitting group members wants to make afghans to give to each of the special needs kids that come to camp in the summer. I found a whole bin of granny squares already made and a bunch of odds and ends collected to make more. That should get rid of 2 bins right there.

I sorted out some more yarn and linked them to some projects in Ravelry. As I do this, I am going to set aside yarn I think I'll never use and either sell it on eBay or take it to "From the Heart" in Richmond for them to use. Yesterday, my sister and mother and I took a whole bin worth of knitted items to them for donation. I'll try to make up a bin to take with me in the summer also. I have also joined some stash-busting groups on Ravelry to help spur me on.

5. I am going to try to make some more of my Christmas presents throughout the year using the techniques I'm working on. I did a number of projects this summer and it turns out that I really needed them when my dad went into the hospital in November. Ravelry is a super help for this because I can link the pattern and the yarn together when I enter my stash in their database. I've found that getting a stack of books and magazines and just going through them to pick out patterns for gifts is not very efficient. I get terribly distracted and end up frittering away my time on interesting projects of my own.

6. Last! As I reclaim my needles and stitch holders from my UFOs I plan to enter them in the Ravelry database also and evaluate my collection. Extra needles I'll give to the new knitters in my knitting group and take the rest to "From the Heart." As added incentive to give away my extra needles, I am going to gradually switch to some more of my favorite Lantern Moon needles. They have really spoiled me!

This is a pretty ambitious list, and I doubt I can do everything, but at least I have a plan!

Dad's passing

Sadly, my dad passed away November 29th. He went in the hospital on the 22nd and I left from Florida to go to Virginia on the 25th. We brought him home on the 29th to hospice care and he died 4 hours later. He wanted so badly to go home and I am glad we were able to get him there.

He was a remarkable man; raised on a depression poor farm in Mississippi, he managed to go into the CCC's and the Army where he learned to operate the radio. That led him to Washington, DC where he got a job with the FBI. He did a
lot of work on himself to make that jump from farm to FBI including taking ballroom dance lessons. He lost the Mississippi drawl, but he never lost his love for his birthplace and his family. We moved many times with the FBI, but every summer we loaded up the car and went "home." Of course, we had to go "home" to Mom's family in Wisconsin, so we were usually gone the entire month of August.

While he was in the hospital, I stayed with him overnights. I knitted Christmas presents and talked to him, even sang some of the old songs we sang in the car and later with his guitar playing friends. There were so many wonderful memories. He could do anything he put his mind to and he always told us we could do the same. He'd say, "Of course you can do it; you're my child." He meant it too. We were not allowed to say, "I can't." After he retired from the FBI, he built a house in Callao, VA and a boathouse for his beloved "Wis-Mis." It is hard to imagine looking at a piece of land and deciding you were going to build a 2-story house all by yourself, with no training... and with only a little help from friends and family, but he did and he did an amazing job.

The grandkids all grew up there crabbing off the pier and playing in the sand. They often brought their friends with them to spend the weekend; it was that kind of home. There are just so many wonderful memories and I am so grateful to have such a remarkable, wise, loving and giving father. He lived to be 90 and he left an enormous footprint for all of us to follow.